Don't Ask Me ... I Don’t Know has been around now for about 9 years posting Blues LP’s, some CD’s and whatever else I feel like.
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Saturday, August 9, 2014

Guitar Slim - Greensboro Rounder

James "Guitar Slim" Stephens Piedmont blues and sacred singer, guitarist, pianist, master of black oral arts. From the late 20's through to the early 50's he traveled around the southern United States, often with medicine shows. he settled in Greensboro, North Carolina, for 20 years, but returned to performing in the mid 70's at colleges and folk festivals. recordings of him appeared on the labels Flyright, Rounder, and L+R. he is not to be confused with James "Preacher" Stephens who recorded with the Modern label in Houston, Texas, in 1954. Guitar Slim passed away on the 10th of February 1991. (Blues Encyclopedia - Edward Komara)

Happens to some extent on nearly all tracks, perhaps easiest to discern on Track 2, Little Boy. If you listen to the quieter parts you can hear in the background a pre-figuration of the louder parts which follow. It is less noticeable on the piano accompanied pieces, but you can still pick it up. This is typical of tape print through.

Remember that those records were not made in studio but by field researcher Kip Lornell who used portable equipment from 40 years and more ago... Those recordings are certainly not technically perfect but because it was made on the field, at the bluesman's home, there are much more guts, flesh and blood in it. I had the opportunity to be with Kip on one of his field trip around Memphis and I can testify how difficult it was to gain confidence of the people and convince them to record... We should be grateful that people like Lornell, Evans and others did this field researches and recordings because without them hundreds of country bluesmen would never have been recorded...

Interestingly the two tracks from this LP posted on YouTube by Stefan Wirz show no signs of this kind of distortion at all, in fact the originals were quite well recorded despite any difficulties in the field. I venture that the problems with the current upload stem from its origin as possibly a tape copy rather than direct from the original LP